Friday linkfest

It’s a slow time of year for open water; hence the recent dearth of links posts. Amid blizzards and iced covered lakes, it’s easy to forget it’s actually summer in the other half of the world. What’s the latest from Down Under?

One of the more epic events on the Australian open water calendar took place last Saturday. The Rottnest Channel Swim is a 19.7K (12.2 mile) dash from Cottesloe Beach near Perth to Rottnest Island. 148 solo swimmers successfully finished (plus numerous relays) – a humongous field for a swim of that distance!

Rotto (as it’s affectionately nicknamed) is definitely high on my bucket list, and would provide a perfect escape from Chicago in February. In the meantime, I can salivate over other folks’ race reports (thank you, interwebs). Here are two great ones:

In other news, I’ve been working on my kick. Not so much the power of my kick (which is OK), but the integration of my kick with the rest of my stroke (which, as I recently learned, has some issues). More on that later… but it’s a good excuse to link over to The Race Club. If you’re not familiar, the Race Club swim camps are run by Gary Hall, Sr. – one of the greatest American swimmers and an Olympian in 1968, ’72, and ’76.

Their website is a goldmine of information on swim technique. I particularly enjoyed the recent “Secret Leg Tips” series. In four videos, Hall discusses propulsion, lift, stabilization, and inertia.